Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Dec 17;21(24):8428. doi: 10.3390/s21248428.
Dual-task balance studies explore interference between balance and cognitive tasks. This study is a descriptive analysis of accelerometry balance metrics to determine if a verbal cognitive task influences postural control after the task ends. Fifty-two healthy older adults (75 ± 6 years old, 30 female) performed standing balance and cognitive dual-tasks. An accelerometer recorded movement from before, during, and after the task (reciting every other letter of the alphabet). Thirty-six balance metrics were calculated for each task condition. The effect of the cognitive task on postural control was determined by a generalized linear model. Twelve variables, including anterior-posterior centroid frequency, peak frequency and entropy rate, medial-later entropy rate and wavelet entropy, and bandwidth in all directions, exhibited significant differences between baseline and cognitive task periods, but not between baseline and post-task periods. These results indicate that the verbal cognitive task did alter balance, but did not bring about persistent effects after the task had ended. Traditional balance measurements, i.e., root mean square and normalized path length, notably lacked significance, highlighting the potential to use other accelerometer metrics for the early detection of balance problems. These novel insights into the temporal dynamics of dual-task balance support current dual-task paradigms to reduce fall risk in older adults.
双任务平衡研究探索了平衡和认知任务之间的干扰。本研究对加速度计平衡指标进行描述性分析，以确定在任务结束后，言语认知任务是否会影响姿势控制。52 名健康老年人（75 ± 6 岁，30 名女性）进行了站立平衡和认知双重任务。加速度计记录了任务前、任务中和任务后的运动情况（每隔一个字母背诵字母表）。为每个任务条件计算了 36 个平衡指标。认知任务对姿势控制的影响由广义线性模型确定。12 个变量，包括前后重心频率、峰值频率和熵率、内外熵率和小波熵以及所有方向的带宽，在基线和认知任务期间表现出显著差异，但在基线和任务后期间没有差异。这些结果表明，言语认知任务确实改变了平衡，但在任务结束后并没有产生持续的影响。传统的平衡测量方法，即均方根和归一化路径长度，明显缺乏显著性，这突出了使用其他加速度计指标来早期检测平衡问题的潜力。这些关于双任务平衡的时间动态的新见解支持了当前的双任务范式，以降低老年人的跌倒风险。
